Naissance en 1883, décès en 1963
Krikor Arakel Keljik (1883-1963) published poems and novels under the name “Devrish” (author’s spelling; Arm. Tēvriš). Like his elder brother Bedros Arakel Keljik, Krikor was a writer and activist, an Oriental rug merchant and a founder of the Twin Cities (i.e., Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN) Armenian community. They contrasted, however, in their political and literary leanings: Bedros, a former Hnč‘ak(Arm. “Bell”, after Alexander Herzen’s Russian Kolokol: a progressive democratic party), was a local-‐color realist with a slightly cynical edge, whereas Krikor, a staunch Dašnak, remained a romantic through and through. Both brothers were maternal uncles of the writer Vahan Totovents (1889-1938), who worked in the Keljiks’ St. Paul rug business between semesters at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.A 1922 profile in the St. Paul Pioneer Press says that Krikor was a frequent contributor of poems and short stories to the Armenian-‐language American press, both newspapers and magazines. He contributed to the Boston Armenian-‐language Dašnak paper Hayrenik‘as “Devrish.” The books printed with the author’s name as “Devrish” or “K. Devrish”, with some description of their content courtesy of Lou Ann Matossian:
1. Tēvrišin K‘eškiwrǝ, Boston: Hayrenik‘ Press, 1930. The author’s first book. Contains a short novel, Bakhedjin(“The Fortune-‐teller”) and a novella, Nouskhan(“The Locket”). Both works incorporate poems and songs.
2. Murmurs of [the] Muse, St. Paul: Devrish Press, 1941; 2ndedition, 1949. Verse in English, dedicated to the author’s daughter, Sossy Armenia Keljik, who died young. Self-‐published, with typography, printing and binding all done by the author’s hand.
3. Žayṙeru žaṙangǝ (“Heir of the Rocks”), Tēvrišin tparan(=Devrish Press), 1947.The cover page of “A Dervish’s Begging Bowl”, illustrated here, affords a sense, both of the romantic image of the mystical mendicant, and of his embodiment of a longed-‐for convivenciaof Christians and Muslims—a notion as wistfully fanciful as the picture of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish harmony in Spain before 1492 for which the term was coined. Behind the dervish in a romantically half-‐wild, half-‐paradisiacal landscape rise the pointed, Cross-‐topped domes of Armenian churches, one of which is inspired by the 10th-¬‐century island church of the Holy Cross on Ałt‘amar (Aghtamar) in lake Van.
